Once, while still doing his best to keep Sting from feeling like he was opposed to the pregnancy, Rogue stopped in the doorway on his way out to work on some dark guild suppression job and said, "I love you."

"Mm." Sting, who's mouth was full of strawberry cake at the moment, couldn't get out a better response. A tragedy, really. Rogue had grown more open with his affection over the years, and especially gotten better with physical contact after their many failed attempts at finding a time to consummate their relationship, but for him to flat out say those three words was still uncommon, and Sting had wanted to return them.

"Is the baby alright? I haven't heard anything about them moving."

Sting nodded.

Smiling, Rogue said, "Let me know when they're active, next time. I'd like to feel them."

He was gone before Sting could swallow his cake, leaving the blond feeling like their farewell was incomplete. But that was okay. If Rogue really wanted to feel the baby, if he hadn't said that just because of whatever Lector told him about the breakdown the other week, then Sting would be happy to let him. When Rogue came back in a few days, he decided, he'd drag him to their bedroom and show him wherever the baby was kicking right then.

Two weeks after that, he was still waiting to give Rogue that chance.

Just like there was no moment where Rogue explicitly said he hadn't meant to hurt Sting, there was no moment where Lector noted that Rogue was gone. Frosch, who might have whimpered about it starting five minutes after Rogue walked out the door, had left with Rogue. Sting was able to convince himself, as the days passed, that it wasn't an unreasonable amount of time to be away on a mission to stop a dark guild. Maybe a train had broken down. Rogue might have taken a few days to gather information. It could even be that he'd gotten food poisoning and been out of commission for a day or two.

It wasn't until Natsu asked if Sting needed anyone to stay and help at night that Sting couldn't fool himself into denying something was wrong.

Natsu stared at him, waiting for a response. Was Alex the type who woke up needing her daddy in the middle of the night or not? Sting, however, didn't notice. In accepting that Rogue had been gone too long, especially without sending word, he had opened himself up to a whole new kind of speculation over why his lover might be gone so long. Was he dead? Kidnapped? He might be under torture just then.

"Sting? Hey? Do you not need help?"

"Has Rogue contacted the guild?"

Natsu hesitated a moment, then forced a grin and said, "That's right. You don't get out too often anymore, do you? It's a little late now, but tomorrow I can help wheel you to the guild. Alex can sit on my shoulders. How does that sound?"

"Has Rogue contacted the guild or not!?"

Again, Natsu hesitated.

"He hasn't…"

Bowing his head, Natsu sighed and admitted, "We haven't heard from him. Gramps sent Mira out earlier in the week to check on him, but he wasn't in the inn where he was supposed to be staying. The guild wasn't where the job information said it would be either." Realizing he'd heard nothing on the two of them making amends after what Sting had told him a month before, Natsu added, "B-but I'm sure there was just a little trouble. Rogue is… I mean, he really loves you. Even if you two hit a rough patch—"

"I know he didn't run away," Sting said. It came out sounding odd. Annoyance with the implication that he might not be aware of Rogue's loyalty drying his tone while fear for Rogue's safety made his chest and throat feel tight.

"He'll be fine, you know? Rogue isn't weak."

"Of course he isn't!" Rogue had never been weak. Maybe reluctant to get into a real fight while he was pregnant, but even when he'd had to keep Alex's safety in mind whenever things got physical, Rogue had still been able to put up some effort to defend himself. He wasn't the one who kept winding up in a wheelchair, stuck in their apartment, playing the stay at home parent while their lover left frequently to go out and work and support them.

Rogue wasn't weak, but at times Sting sure felt like he was.

"He went on that job alone?"

"Well… he didn't seem to think it warranted finding a partner."

They would have been partners automatically, if he wasn't off active duty. Rogue had managed alright on his own since Sting became pregnant, taking lighter jobs and getting help from Erza when he urgently needed to do something better paying. If something happened to him because he'd been on his own… Sting swallowed hard, trying to rid himself of the lump in his throat. If something happened because he hadn't been there to have Rogue's back…

"Don't beat yourself up over it," Natsu told him. "Rogue picked that job out. There were easier ones he could have gone for."

And he probably took that one after crunching the numbers and seeing that they were in desperate need of cash. Because he was supporting a little kid and two cats and a pregnant adult who didn't work, and because that adult begged and pleaded for another mouth to feed and they needed to be ready for that when the baby was born. It hadn't missed Sting's notice that Natsu had taken to bringing his own groceries with his increasingly frequent visits since Rogue left.

"Is anyone looking for him? What town was his job in? I could go and help search. So long as I stay away from the dark guild—"

"You stay with Alex."

"But—"

"How well is Alex taking it, with her mom missing?"

She wasn't. Rogue and Sting tried not to be gone too long without her. Never more than a few days. Mommy or Daddy disappearing briefly as a fact of life she'd learned to suffer through, although both leaving at once wasn't something she handled well. Mommy not being home for two weeks had hit her hard. The only reason there was any peace and quiet for Natsu and Sting to discuss Rogue's missing status was because she'd worn herself out throwing her seventh fit of the day earlier, and been carried back to her crib.

Had Natsu chosen to go the health concerns angle, Sting would have been all the more determined to help find Rogue. Deep down, he knew that this was likely Natsu's main concern, and the roset had only brought Alex up because he knew how Sting would take any suggestion that he wasn't fit try and rescue Rogue from whatever ill fate had befallen him. Still, thinking of how Alex might take it if her Daddy vanished too, Sting couldn't bring himself to fight Natsu for the right to go after Rogue.

"Will you do, then?" Sting asked.

"Me? You're trusting me to go save Rogue?" Natsu asked.

"Yes. Even if I didn't trust Rogue with you, I want him safe more than I want to know that you're not going to try. And I'm trusting Lucy to kick your ass if you make anything of that."

It didn't slip Natsu's attention that Sting trusted Rogue and not him, but so long as the blond wasn't worried about him and Rogue having an affair behind his back, Natsu supposed it didn't matter too much why Sting thought it wasn't a serious concern.

Granted, knowing that Rogue had cheated on him with Sting, only half a year after Sting falsely accusing Rogue of cheating on him with Natsu, of all things, Natsu couldn't help but feel a little jealous of Sting's confidence.

-o-

It was just Sting and Lector the next couple days, which made them a more efficient parenting team for Alex than when it was Sting, the cats, and Natsu, but the lack of both Rogue and Natsu meant that they were forced to drop by the guild three times a day for meals. Lector was a professional at reheating, but he'd never attempted to cook. Having seen Sting's attempts, he also knew better than to let him attempt again.

It was on the second day of dinner at the guild that Natsu rushed back in. He kept his back to Sting, ignoring the blond as he called to know what was going on, and instead ran straight to Wendy.

Leaving Lector and whoever happened to be at the table with him to keep Alex happy for a few minutes, Sting started to wheel himself over to Natsu, then gave up and got out of the wheelchair to walk over to Natsu. It was only moderately painful to put weight on his leg, and he didn't have the patience to wheel himself around with motion sickness when there might be news about Rogue.

When he got there, it became obvious why Natsu had ignored him. He had found news indeed, and it didn't look good. Frosch lay unconscious on the table, her frog suit torn and bloodied. Seeing her, Sting's froze, and he needed to make sure she was breathing before he could get air in himself.

"Where was she?"

"Found her lying on the ground in the woods," Natsu said. "She had a fresh trail, so I think she must have lasted a while before collapsing. Probably travel a ways on foot."

"On foot?"

"Mm." Natsu hesitated before explaining how he came to that conclusion. "There were bloody footprints."

"Why on foot?" Sting asked no one in particular. Frosch was better in the air than Lector, and both cats knew it. Since there was so little else that Frosch was aware of being better at, she loved flying when the opportunity presented itself. Fleeing an attacker would absolutely be a reason to fly.

Unless…

Sting bit his lip, recalling occasions where Frosch had thrown herself into the fray trying to defend Rogue. More than once she'd stepped in under the delusion that she could protect him when he could no longer defend himself. It worked, in a way. Knowing that Frosch would endanger herself if he slipped up was an excellent motivator for Rogue, and he rarely got himself into such dire straits that Frosch felt he needed her.

"How bad… Is she going to be okay?"

Wendy nodded. "She lost a lot of blood, but not enough to kill her. She's still exhausted. If she's given time to rest, she should recover."

He opened his mouth to say he could take care of her, but the words didn't come out. He already had to comfort Alex constantly over her missing mommy. Nurturing Frosch back to health while trying to stall the decline of his own on top of that… Not to mention no one exactly got rest when Alex was up at all hours of the night crying about how Rogue wasn't there to tuck her in. Not that Rogue had ever been the one to tuck her in.

"Wendy… can you take care of her?"

"Eh? Me? But Frosch is Rogue's… are you sure you don't want to?"

Sting was sure he couldn't, but to admit as much was more than he could do, and he only shook his head.

"Alright…"

"Are you sure that's alright?" Natsu asked?

It wasn't. And Rogue would probably never forgive him for not doing whatever he could for Frosch. Even if… even if the best Sting could do was leave her in more capable hands.

"It's fine. Natsu, did you hear anything about Rogue?"

"N-no… As soon as Frosch is better, we'll ask her if she remembers something."

"Alright." Sting stood. "Let me know what she says."

-o-

Three days later, Frosch woke up. No one told Sting.

The rescue party left without a word to him.

Frosch never asked to leave Wendy's.